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Government Shutdown: Advantage Obama. What now?

(midnight, Government Shutdown Night, 9/30/13). There’s a simple reason why Barack Obama and his allies just shut down the government. He knows he will win the communications war with Republicans and especially against conservatives.

Certainly, each side will then go to their constituencies and blame the other and try to recruit their followers to help them reach the American people with their message.

As Barack Obama marches forward with his plan to shut down the government and earn a “political profit” from his act, now a “done deed” as of this post midnight article, he begins with an army that outnumbers conservatives by at least three to one with social media and 15 to 1 in firepower. He begins with the advantage of having most of the news media on his side. And his side is willing to lie, with his followers accepting and passing on the lie.

Therefore the American people are going to be barraged with a couple simple talking points, over and over, after Obama and his allies shut down the government a few minutes ago. It has begun already.

The GOP has been seized by extremist forces, as Juan Williams kept claiming on Fox TV earlier tonight. Those extremists shut down the government, causing the economy to lose several billions and untold suffering and anguish across America, he complained. The extremists tried to blackmail the President, and used despicable, hurtful, wicked, Tea Party terrorist tactics.

That is of course, all utter hogwash. Members of the House are by design, closer to the “will of the people” than the Senate, where only 1/3 of their members are even up for election within the next two years. The body that is closest to what the people want – whether that is a good thing or a bad thing – is not being “blackmailed” by terrorists or by the evil Tea Party or by extremists or conservatives or all of the above. They are being representative of the party who nominated them and the people who elected them.

Ted Cruz, Mike Lee and the House GOP didn’t propose to shut down the government during this past week. They proposed defunding Obamacare or putting restrictions on it.

The President and his allies countered that they would rather (a) shut down the government and (b) blame it on the GOP. They did. They are.

It has been my feeling from the start of this debate that there is nothing but total capitulation that the GOP can do, to avert this government shutdown.

The stand by Senators Ted Cruz, Mike Lee and a few others earned a predictable reaction from GOP moderates who have ALWAYS wanted to “compromise and work things out” with Democrats, and who have ALWAYS wanted to avoid argument and instead seek “pale pastels not bold colors” to twist around Ronald Reagan’s 1974 remarks to CPAC.

I studied communists because several who defected from that cause to ours, told me many years ago that we conservatives should better know our enemy. Later, the techniques I learned about were codified in a book many will have by now heard of – even though they might still not be aware of the origin of Saul Alinsky’s ideas.

Lying is moral to a communist, or to Saul Alinsky, if it advances your cause. Telling the truth is immoral, if it hurts your cause. If ever there was a reason to say someone is a “pathological liar” it is this: he is a follower (or in the case of Barack Obama, a former teacher) of Saul Alinsky.

The sad fact is, a big lie has been told about what happened when Newt Gingrich and House Republicans balked at the big spending budget proposals of the President. The truth is rarely told that Republicans actually gained Senate seats in the next election, and that the GOP preserved their brand for future victory by standing up to the President and later forcing him to actually balance the budget.

Sadly, to this day the truth is not only NOT being told about what happened last time a Democrat President forced a government shut down, but the exact opposite is what is told.

The story told today is that the GOP shut the government down and were “punished” in the next election. I spoke to a fairly conservative GOP U.S. Congressman recently, who faithfully echoed that “party line.”

Further, the story told today is that the President balanced the budget.

I defy you to find a current “mainstream media” article which speaks of the House forcing the President to balance the budget, which is the truth. No, most people are not aware of this truth.

Who writes history?

35 million Barack Obama friends are going to pass on exactly what they are told to say when they wake up on Tuesday, October 1, about this government shutdown.

The “mainstream news media” will pass on exactly what they are told to say. It will be so pervasive that you will be able to see people like Bill O’Reilly and others who are clearly NOT liberal-left followers of Barack Obama, speaking of the “government shutdown” as if it were either (a) the Republican House members and Ted Cruz and their allies who did it, or (b) it happened because the two parties didn’t just sit down over a beer and work it all out.

And from the right, who will challenge the 35 million Barack Obama Facebook friends and the even larger advantage they have in the mainstream media?

I contend that our side has a lot more to learn, and that we need more leaders building larger, better trained, more active followers. I contend that our side is woefully behind our leftist adversary – an up to 15 to 1 disadvantage that is the direct cause of the government shut down or perhaps far worse, the pending surrender as early as the next 36 hours by the GOP fearing a slaughter at the polls.

I am not being an apologist for those who worked overtime to throw Ted Cruz under the bus last week, or who are advocates for “compromise and let’s fight in the future, not right now.” Far from it.

We conservatives have our role, and it is not to just win one election, but to preserve, enlarge and better motivate and train our army – as it was George Washington’s job during battle after battle up until he wintered at Valley Forge with a virtually perfect record of defeat after defeat.

We must preserve our philosophy and hold out that banner of no pale pastels, but of bold and vibrant colors, as Ronald Reagan said in 1974. We should hold Republicans accountable who say one thing but then bolt and run at the first sound of trouble in Washington.

We must always look ahead to the future and to how we who speak the truth can overcome the lies we are facing on Obamacare and on so many other issues.

But we also have to face a hard truth. The other side does in fact, outnumber us, and those of us in the fight, must rededicate ourselves to expanding our ranks and improving our side’s motivation, training and reach.

So here is my salute to a handful of people whose names come to mind as examples of people making a stand.

I do not own stock or hold any special brief for Facebook or any other particular way that one can be a conservative internet activist. But I recognize that the number of people who use Facebook and other social media, means we ignore these tools at our peril.

A handy rule of thumb to see how outnumbered we are, and what work we have ahead of us, is to simply look up the names of the top 10 (OK I kept going and made it top 14) “personalities” who could be called major opponents to Barack Obama.

I know this list would probably not stand muster with everyone – some may want to take a name (or more than 1) out, others want to add a few names. No matter. Here’s why.

These top 14 for sure stand up against Obama better than most, and have decent size Facebook followings as a result of their public stand. But these top 14 are outnumbered 3 to 1 by Barack Obama, all by himself.

No doubt, one could be more “scientific” if you made a list of all of the organizations and personalies of the left and compared them to all from the right. I didn’t do that. I simply picked who came to my mind as our top ten – and then expanded it to top 14.

So the good news is, that we have so many working the social media side for our cause. The bad news is that so many conservatives just vote or donate during election campaigns or a few times during the year when they get fired up.

But then when that political campaign or effort is over, they go back to sleep.

These are the numbers that must increase dramatically, for us to overcome an entrenched position held by establishment Republicans and liberal and leftist Democrats.

Most military strategists will tell you the general rule that the attacker should outnumber the entrenched defender by at least three to one, in order to have a shot at victory.

Too many conservatives I know, barely check their email every few days, either do not have a Facebook account or if they do they think of it as their passive yellow pages ad not a dynamic source of ever changing and evolving info/exchanges, and have no clue what twitter is. While many have heard of an online resources such as REDSTATE, sadly, most do not make regular use of it to fight for our cause.

Information is not power. Information that is used, is.

The other side has enormous advantages over us in this arena, even with false information.

Many Republicans and quite a few fairly conservative commentators today believe we should wait for Obamacare to collapse and then we can win in the future. They are – understandably in my view – reluctant to keep their campaign promises if it means going up against such enormous odds. I did not excuse that behavior by the way – I simply said it is understandable.

But the communications and grassroots organizing advantage that the left has over us will still exist in the future, and the willingness of their followers to accept and pass on the lies they are given, won’t diminish. Unless we recognize and work on the problem.

We need better trained troops who stay in the field regardless of whether we win or lose each battle.

We need more people signing up for seminars and “how to” teaching to learn about the new tools of the modern day political battlefield. I have attended some of their seminars and can speak highly of two organizations which teach this technology – Morton Blackwell’s Leadership Institute, and American Majority.

Knowing the truth on the issues isn’t enough for us to win. Overcoming the 35 million to 13 million advantage of Obama versus our “top 14” conservatives, is what we need to do.

Please don’t bog down in the question of whether there are some names in there you wouldn’t include or some I missed. I may even agree with you. My point to include these names was to pick the ones that came most readily to mind as outspoken opponents of Barack Obama, to show how very outnumbered we are.

Can we increase these top 14’s numbers from 13 million, to 108 million, in order to have a shot at overcoming the advantages of an entrenched liberal to left foe whose acknowledged leader has 35 million Facebook friends – and it would appear, a three to one “air power” advantage (or more) over us?

I do not think we can do that, but we CAN and we need to increase how OFTEN our people make use of social media, and how large a following each of them builds, so that we can more effectively compete with Barack Obama’s better connected followers.

Can we find stronger, and more effective “personalities” and organizations to mobilize larger and better trained networks of followers so we can prevail?

If we don’t change these odds I contend we are in trouble. Not only does Obama outnumber us 37 million to 13 million but more of HIS followers are MUCH better connected to the internet, than ours are, and have MUCH larger “friend lists”.

Wouldn’t you rather have 4,000 friends who each have 1,000 friends rather than 200 friends with 200 friends each, if your purpose was to communicate a conservative message?

Most conservatives would reply “but my friends are REAL friends.” The other side doesn’t think that way. They think of their “friends” as subscribers and activists for their cause.

Their side has a possible reach of 4 million if each of them “forwarded” your message to their friend list… or larger still if those friends passed it on yet again), while we conservatives probably have, 200 friends who each have 200 friends, with a possible reach for your conservative message of 40,000 on your Facebook account.

To put this in more specific terms, if there is an article you like here at REDSTATE and you “Facebook Like” that article, are you reaching 200 “friends” or 1,000 friends? And, are each of YOUR friends more like the Obama 35 million with LARGE friend lists– or more like most conservatives who I know with much smaller lists?

If you take this disparity into account then the Obama 37 million number would change to 37 billionmessages (37 million x 1000 friends each) versus our side’s 2.4 billion messages (11 million x 200 friends each).

Now imagine a daily outpouring of messages for each side all month – at least 20x a month – for a disparity of 740 billion messages to 48 billion conservative messages.

That’s a disparity of 15 to 1 we are facing, when we should have a 3 to 1 advantage to overcome the entrenched barricades of modern day liberal left Democrats and the no pale pastels Republicans.

We need to do better at recruiting more people who will stay active, and who will be plugged in to conservative internet resources.

There are some people who are examples of what we need lots more of. Those for example, who not only read REDSTATE but who also go out of their way to “tweet” the link for articles they like, pass that link on via their own email list or on their Facebook page. Those who not only stay well informed and who not only regularly donate to our cause, attend our meetings and call their Senators and Congressman when we need them to, but who also reach out to others to do the same.

The key point here is: we need to reach out to bring more people in. We cannot merely talk to each other.

This is the hill that the other side already sits at the top of. To overcome them, we need more numbers, people who will learn and grow, and help us expand.

To those already doing this, I salute you and thank you. To those reading this who aren’t, please, won’t you join us in cutting down the enormous advantage the other side has – learn from seminars at Leadership Institute, American Majority and other “how to” teaching sources both “hands on” in person as well as via internet. Learn from others who are doing this already. We need you.

With better numbers in the future, we won’t see a get out the vote effort that turned Sharron Angle’s poll lead a few days before election day, into a couple point reelection for Harry Reid, on election day. A good “ground game” is but one more manifestation of our adversary having an advantage over us in organization. And, another point you’ll not see mentioned in the “mainstream” media is that their side is far more effective at “disciplining” (ie. punishing) defectors who vote wrong occasionally.

If we had better numbers we might not have seen a majority of GOP U.S. Senators voting with Harry Reid and against Ted Cruz and Mike Lee for cloture as happened this past Friday. If our numbers improve so too will our results.

Here are the numbers I just looked up and which inspired this article.

If my numbers are exaggerated it is in the wrong direction, ie. one could argue that we should simply compare “our best” (Palin with 3.6 million) versus “their best” (Obama with 37 million) and then do the effectiveness/reach multiplier I mentioned above. If one were to do that it would be a much worse number than 15 to 1 against us.

It is my contention here, that we need the above numbers to improve – not just for each of the anti-Obama personalities named but to also add more “personalities” to that list – and to have our people become far more “connected” and active with social media and as conservative activists and donors, or else the other side will continue winning battles against us both in the federal and state legislatures and also at the ballot box in the future.

On defunding Obamacare, the debt ceiling battle and other fights we can and must fight, I do not say we ought not to fight. And I do not say we cannot win. But I do contend that the other side would not be so anxious to pick fights with us like this “government shutdown” if they didn’t have such an enormous numerical advantage in the communications arena.

Who wins the “battle of the government shutdown” is not a matter of who is right, sadly. It is a matter of who has the better numbers to communicate their message to the American people. We need to face the fact that our side needs to do better in the future, at reaching people.

(if there are other organizations which you feel do a good job of teaching conservative technology besides the two that I mentioned by all means add their names and website link in the comment section here – and thank you, I certainly did not mean to offend you and others who I know are out there and teaching the “how to” technology our side needs more of)

(and if there’s somebody you feel I overlooked in my listing of “top 14 conservative personalities” by all means add that too – I don’t think it will alter the point I was making – I wasn’t trying to be all inclusive, or insult anybody by leaving out a favorite; one or more of the names I mention above are NOT my favorites but they are certainly all notable for their willingness to criticize Barack Obama, for which I am most grateful).

(ADDENDUM 1. Laura Ingraham has a very respectable 273k. And she is one of my favorite conservative personalities. My apology!!! … I just realized this after posting… are there more names that belong up there???)

Glenn Ryt posts “opinion” and reporting articles (see https://www.redstate.com/glennryt) and at http://FreedomLeadershpConference.org) to help promote the message of the monthly Freedom Leadership Conference in northern Virginia, sponsored by over 60 different conservative cause organizations in the 14 years since it started as an annual event. Changed to a monthly event in late 2012, the next conference is on the theme, “a Conservative Change Conference” on Thursday, October 17 focusing on Mark Levin’s Liberty Amendments proposal (speaker: Michael O’Neill of Levin’s Landmark Legal Foundation) and Michael Thompson (President of the Thomas Jefferson Institute for Public Policy, the conference sponsor this month) to speak on his proposal for tax change in Virginia to eliminate the gross receipts tax with a “revenue neutral” proposal.

The next conference is on Wed., November 13, featuring U.S. Congressman Scott Perry for an “SOS2” event – “Save our Servicemen” (to describe the threats faced to American servicemen both in America and abroad) and also “Salute our Servicemen” (2 days after Veterans Day), sponsored by Uniformed Services League. Rep. Perry is a Colonel, US Army National Guard, who served in Iraq. Both the October and November conference will be at the Fairfax Marriott at Fair Oaks, VA, details at the conference website or facebook page, https://www.facebook.com/FreedomLeadershipConference (advance registration is required for admission, and members only are invited to the dinner before the conference, which starts at 7 PM with a coffee, tea and dessert social).

The Leadership Institute mentioned in this article, is a past sponsor of the Freedom Leadership Conference (back when it was called Western Conservative Conference), some 14 years ago.